I have long been interested in ideas which hang around the edges of science. If you are looking for discussion of these ideas, you fairly quickly come across two camps which tend to dominate the debates - the Skeptics and the Believers. I hung around for several years on one of the more active skeptical sites, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) forum. My username there was "fls". A few years ago I moved over to one of the more active believer sites, the Skeptiko forum, where I kept the same username.
Both kinds of sites are dominated by attacks on the low-hanging fruit, those ideas and behaviours which are fairly easily derided as silly - psychics like Sylvia Browne who seem to be phoning it in, critics of psi who proudly declare they haven't read the paper they are criticizing. And both kinds of sites seemed devoted to polarizing the debate. Psychics are all deluded or frauds. Skeptics are close-minded sheep. And on it goes. Alex Tskaris, the founder of Skeptiko, coined the phrase "Stuck on Stupid" to refer to anyone who doesn't share his beliefs. James Randi coined "Woo-Woos" to refer to those who believe in the paranormal.
Many people are certainly profiting (some in terms of cash, many in terms of credit) from making this all about a culture war. But what gets lost in all this is that there are some damned interesting aspects to discuss in terms of evidence, the way in which science is practised, and why it matters. Along the way, I have found a few people interested in engaging with these topics - thoughtful, funny, knowledgeable people who are a pleasure to talk to. But these discussions seem to get marginalized and over-run by those who need to turn this into an Us vs. Them culture war. I've given up (at least for the moment) looking for a place where proponents and non-proponents engage in reasonable discussion.
I've started this blog in order to talk about evidence and speculation in the presence of evidence rather than its absence, moving beyond the low-hanging fruit. My perspective comes from many years working with and teaching evidence-based practices in medicine, and I apply the same approach when looking at those ideas and phenomena which fall under "paranormal" as I do to those ideas and phenomena which fall under "health". I am hoping others will join me here, although I have an unfortunate tendency to enjoy talking to myself. :-)
Linda
